People were so “interested” in this line that only the relatively new Chinese and the recently renovated French top tier TDs have less played battles in them compared to the 263.

Only that Tier 9 SU-122-54 had some sort of activity on it recently, since people had started to grind their way up for some “free” tank and garage slot shenanigans.

As much as I enjoyed the 263 back in the day I wont say I will be too sad to see it drop down a tier.

The only thing I am sad to see that the 268 Ver.4 does not have an alternate higher DPM 130mm cannon opposite to the derpy 152mm.

So take a look at ti from a companies point of view, cause in the end this just a product. So when something is not attractive to most of your customers you’ll change it even if it pisses of the remaining few people are getting pissed by it.

The problem was not the Obj.263, it was the trash grind you had to go trough in order to get it.
And if you want to talk about the companies point of view, why not have both Obj.263 and Obj.268V4 at tier 10? The models where already done…

Forums are far from representative sample. It’s either crybabies or sub-par players feeling the need to interact with others. Most people do not give a shit about forums and don’t visit them. I also haven’t heard any good (like, actual good) player complain about the switch.

Oh put down that dumb excuse. You talk to me about irony in your post below this one… what about your own comment? “Forums are far from representative sample”, yet WG creates feedback threads on the FORUM for each update. So someone here is wrong, is it you or WG?
“Good player”… And? So if 1 good player would have said it’s yay or nay, it suddenly becomes yay or nay? This isn’t about what 1 individual player thinks, but what the majority thinks.

sutyi already explained it below, but let me just repeat what he said. People that don’t feel the need to complain won’t go on the forum and say “Hey, WG, I think the Obj 263 downtiering is great!”.

Also, if you think feedback is most important thing or that forums are the only feedback, you’re wrong. I had a quick look through WoT FB page and saw 0 complaints about this change, does that mean nobody cares?
Ofcourse not, it just means feedback through forums/facebook/vk/any other method is flawed and should only be taken as a small indicative, not main point of changes.

You do know that people who have no problem with the swap 95% of the time will not write on the forums or on any other portal for the matter.

So the ones posting on the forums it is what I wrote sadly, just a few people. So those few people can copy-paste that fantastic image all they want, it won’t / didn’t make a single difference in the decision making if the 263 will be replaced or not.

WG is looking at statistics and concrete numbers. The sad reality of the O263 is that very few players play it anymore. They are reworking this branch, because it needs work. I’m not saying they are redoing it the best possible way, but from a company stand point they had to do something with it.

Hopefully there will be some tweaks down the line, but for now you better accept that the O263 wont be staying nor coming back to Tier 10, not it is pre 9.22 form anyway.

The error you’re doing here is assuming that everyone who thinks “I don’t care” would mind if they kept the line as it was. You see, there’s 3 groups of players when it comes to this change: The ones that dislike it, the ones that like it, and the ones that doesn’t care. Thus you have to compare the amount of dislikes vs likes, you just can’t throw in the “i don’t care” group and say that they think it’s fine too, because they don’t care.
Once again, the branch was not unpopular because of the Obj.263, but because of the horrible grind before it. They could just have buffed the previous vehicles in the branch, maybe even buff the Obj.263 a bit, and it would have become a much more interesting branch.
Once again, all of you “yay”-sayers are always avoiding my question for some reason:
Why not keep BOTH Obj.263 and Obj.268V4 at tier 10? On tier 9 they could have either kept the SU-122-54 or added the Obj.268V2 or Obj.262.

I already have the Strv.103B. Once again, stop being an ignorant retard and learn the difference between a camper and a sniper. Your dumb comments just show that you have no clue how to play a support tank. For you it’s binary, either you play like Maus, or you play like arta. Very flexible…

I see what you’re trying to point out, but you fail to see the difference. Classes are SUPPOSED to play in different ways, that’s why we have tanks divided into classes. Imagine Battlefield of World of Warcraft where different classes play exacly the same. That’s not good, so having different gameplay for different classes is a good thing. However, the guy thinks that sniping equals camping in the base or at the redline. That’s the problem here, he’s not talking about playstyles but about a definition.

That’s all cool and everything, but when you’re adding 13th TD and want to make it different you’ll have to blur the lines between classes. TD’s are the most rigid class anyway and there are plenty of snipers, heavies on the other hand blur all kinds of lines, so I don’t exactly see your problem.

“Yeah, its an “armored” tank that can’t tank shots, its s sniper with no terrain adaptability. And arty just plain flattens it.”
That’s what one of the best pub players in the game had to say about it, while averaging around 1,5 spots/game and 700+ assisted, which is more than just about any TD does.
Plus ton of replays of very good games where it’s played aggressively.

268 has pike nose that’s 250 effective (and you cannot fight against multiple angles no matter how thick the armor is), which means you’d have to go hulldown like an IS-7. But wait, superstructure is even worse in places, and it has a tumor on top, that would need more than double the armor.

And thank god they fucking did.
Otherwise we had a tier 9 heavy tank leading to one of the most armored tier X in the game ; but said tier 9 HT got overmatched by any caliber higher than 120mm, which includes all soviet and chinese heavies from tier 7 on, many TDs of tier 7 or 8 and above, even some mediums of tier 8+.
Basicaly the tank was unable to sidescrape and use its armor unless figjting tier 7 MTs. And along with that you still have the roof IS-3-like weakspot that can get easily overmatched aswell.

It was a completely retarded nerf. Okay it’s completely OP to have unpenetrable flanks ; but it’s even more OP to have a tier 9 heavy tank capable of being overmatched on the whole side by tier 7s and thus unable to angle at all.
At least now 15cm guns can still overmatch it. Other tanks can just learn about the HE ammo instead of carrying full-gold, learn to aim weakspots (because there is one, and unless you fire HEAT you will pen it), or get behind the tank before firing at it (or shoot above the retarded angled part).

And if it’s still too powerful they can just compensate by nerfing the gun or lowerplate instead of making the whole tank unuseable.

How does it fail hard ?
How is it logical that a tier 9 super heavy tank leading to a tank with monster armor should be overmatched in the entire side by tier 7 HTs, but not that said heavy tank should instead just be shot in the back or in the turret weakspot that cannot be hidden ?

Stop complaining and start learning to play ? If you know you cant track AND damage the tank at the same time then fucking adapt and either track him to get behind THEN damage or just stay in front of it and aim at the turret roof to damage !
That’s logical. People just have no skill and want to believe it’s the game being too hard instead of them being too bad.
That was logical years ago when people couldnt just pen and damage everything by pressing 2 and know how to aim at weakspots and flank, and at that time tanks with 175mm pen fought Mauses and E-100s and could do it without too much problem if they played well. Why are people now unable to aim at a fucking turret roof which cant be hidden while he is aiming at you ? Because life is too easy with gold ammo and when gold isnt enough they cry because it’s too hard to aim and flank.